In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Tag: Culture Of Life

A Simple Saturday Post: Leave Me Out of Your “Everyone,” Mr. Apatow.

I just wanted to quickly mention the trailer for the new Judd Apatow movie, “This is 40.”

Of course, we all know that Hollywood is guilty of all sorts of offenses all of the time, but it seems rare even today to find one that is quite so up front with its surface-level exclusion. The tagline at the end of the trailer reads: “This is not just their story. This is everyone’s story.”

Please, watch, if you’re so inclined:

(Trigger warnings regarding this trailer: man on a toilet, Megan Fox in underwear, humor about spousal death, anti-aging, inherent anti-lotsa-stuff…)

The trouble, of course, is with the assumption that “everyone” will see some aspect of themselves in this story… a story which appears to be about a wildly wealthy (do you KNOW how much a house like that costs in LA?), white, American-born, middle-aged, thin, conventionally attractive, cissexual, child-rearing, married couple. I’m going to give Mr. Apatow and his corporate marketeers the benefit of the doubt and assume they know not “everyone” will conform to all of those attributes at once, and are trying to make a more general point about the basic similarity of human experience, but even I—a white, cissexual, American-born woman raising a daughter—feel thoroughly alienated and offended by this at just a core level. My heart and stomach clench to wonder how other “everyones” must feel when watching this trailer and getting smacked by that tagline.

It’s obviously impossible to cast aspersions on Mr. Apatow’s film itself– at least until the movie premieres, this will remain a marketing problem– but he is a hugely powerful filmmaker in this town, and I believe it’s fair to say that the tagline came down to him. It represents at the very least a myopic and embarrassing perspective on the world. At worst, it suggests that those with the most privilege in this country are unwilling to even bother extending an invitation to see their new movie to those that aren’t adequately “like them.”

And frankly, in order to chalk up a box office success, they will presumably need more than middle-aged rich white people (traditionally not the most movie-friendly audience out there) to go see their film… So couldn’t they have come up with a slightly less exclusionary pitch?? (I’m kind of seriously asking this, and also leaving the comments section wide open here for complaints, suggestions and heavy-duty snark.)

I am very lenient about humor, and I know what Judd Apatow’s movies are like. Some of his stuff has made me laugh, some has made me cringe, some has made me cringe through laughter or laugh through cringing. In addition, I believe he has every right to tell this story—clearly a personal one—if he chooses to do so. But if his marketing is going to display a level of ignorance this enormous, and work to exclude us so egregiously, then “everyone” can certainly choose not to see it.

Don’t you hate it when

You get raped, but it’s not, like, legitimate rape, and so your amazing kinda-witchy female body doesn’t automatically prevent pregnancy and then you’re like, “Oh shit I’m pregnant, I guess that rape wasn’t real, well at least there’s one upside to this whole situation”? Yeah I hate that too. Thankfully, Rep. Todd Akin, who is running for a U.S. Senate in Missouri, knows doctors, and explains that abortion rights in the case of “legitimate” rape aren’t an issue:

On Perfume, Chemical Cleaning agents and “Scent-free” workplaces.

A couple months ago, as I was enjoying karaoke night at the local Legion, I received a fairly disturbing phone call from a close friend of mine. She sounded absolutely horrible, and I was shocked to find out that she had just returned from the hospital after a rather  exhausting night.

My friend, a severe asthmatic, had suffered a massive attack and had to be rushed to the hospital after encountering a perfect storm of asthma triggers while her and her husband were going about their business that evening.  It had began in an appliance store where a customer coming inside had wafted some cigarette smoke in with them. So began the wheezing and discomfort. The situation was further aggravated when my friend and her husband went for dinner and she went to use the bathroom, and another patron sprayed air freshener in the small space. Finally, in their local Wal-Mart, the smell of the cleaning supplies aisle set her right off and within minutes, she was struggling for air while her husband rushed her out the door so he could take her to the nearest hospital. She very nearly had to be intubated, as her airways had quite nearly closed all the way up. It had been an incredibly close call.

In the aftermath of this near-miss, the government department where my friend works took it upon themselves to implement a scent-free policy, in spite of the fact that the county had out-right refused to put one in place for its offices. My friend found herself a poster girl for the cause, in the position of having to go to each and every one of her co-workers, one on one, and explain her condition and why her very life depended on adherence to the scent-free policy. The reasoning behind this being that simply addressing the office as a group would allow too many people to not pay attention. I guess it’s easier to convincingly say “If you ignore this, I could die,” and have it stick when you’re up close and personal.

My friend’s case is fairly extreme one, but more and more workplaces are adopting scent-free policies and no wonder, as sensitivity to scent can have a lot of unpleasant, if not devastating, effects. My SO frequently meets me at the end of the cleaning aisle as the smell of the chemicals nauseates him. A former co-worker hung a sign on his office specifically asking the cleaning staff not to use cleaning chemicals in his office, due to migraines.

Over the years, so much public awareness and policy has gone towards minimizing smoking in public places, due to the harm it does not only to smokers but to those around them. In that vein, many work-places have started adopting “scent-free” policies and it’s something I’d like to see spread, at the very least to my own office. The other day a visitor came to speak to my boss and I’m pretty sure he brought the entire Axe factory with him. And although I normally have little to no scent issues, his wafting presence played havoc with the chest infection I’ve been battling this week.

The wide-spread use of perfumes, scented chemical cleaners, room fresheners, colognes is an issue that, for the health and safety of people like my friend above, I’d like to bring attention to, especially as it’s one that many people don’t consider as they go about their day-to-day lives. The friend mentioned above has begun writing to retail companies such as The Bay and Shoppers Drug Mart and other large department stores who, when designing their stores, arranged displays so that customers entering are forced to face the gauntlet of the cosmetic display area, complete with perfumes and colognes. The same friend above told me a story of going to a Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up a prescription for her asthma meds, only to find herself having to tear open the package for her inhaler after making her way to the pharmacy, located at the back of the store.

It would seem that restricting one’s right to wear perfume or cleaners would be a huge breach of personal freedoms, but to me it’s one of those “Your Rights End Where Mine Begin” situations. Some random person’s right to douse themselves in Old Spice or Chanel No. 5 ends where someone else’s right to venture into public spaces without having their health jeopardized begins. There is no situation I can think of where one persons health or liberty is put in danger by not wearing scent, or not having a public bathroom smell like some bastardization of a “ocean breeze”. Even smokers can argue the addictive properties of nicotine. Doesn’t apply here. What does apply here is Andie’s law of being a decent human being: “Other People Exist. Don’t Be An Asshole.”

So, how can you help and/or not be an asshole?

*Go Scent-free. Use unscented soaps and deodorants when possible. Don’t bother with perfume and cologne.
*If you are in a public place like a store or a restaurant that has a washroom supplied with aerosol air fresheners, leave a comment card or let the management know directly that air fresheners can be hazardous to some of their customers. There are “odor-eating” products that can be put in a toilet, a few drops at a time, that don’t put chemicals in the air. If these establishments implement these changes, keep going there, as they are not assholes.
*If you work in an office or with the public, try to encourage or implement a scent-free policy
*Use natural cleaners, like diluted vinegar. Barring that, use products labelled as fragrance-free where possible. It’s important to know the difference between Fragrance free and unscented. Something marked as Fragrance-free means that it was made without fragrances. Unscented products may use chemical compounds to mask their scent.

Cutting back on chemicals and scented products, in the long run, can only really do us well, in the long run.

Choice: It’s None of Your Business

It’s that age.

I have one friend who is hosting her baby shower. I have another friend who is waiting at an abortion clinic.

Another friend—of the friend who is having a baby—just bought a pink blanket with baby elephants on it for the baby shower. I’ve been sending my other friend funny text messages all morning—she is too strong and fierce to let me wait with her at the clinic, no matter how much I pleaded.

Both girls made the perfect choice. Because both girls made their choice—something that will shape what the rest of their lives look like.

So, I want to write about choice today—being a woman, republicans and how the choices we make are no one’s business except our own.

Having a baby at age 22 doesn’t look easy—but as her birthday is around the corner, we celebrate her upcoming arrival. Having an abortion at age 22 doesn’t look like an easy decision to make—but having that option is something to celebrate. Neither are tragic or to be despaired. As much as those who are pro-choice lament a young woman being saddled with a child not being able to have as much freedom as her childless friends, at some point her choice to become a mother needs to be accepted and celebrated. As much as women hear about another woman having an abortion and feel nauseas, sympathetic and upset at imagining—or remembering—that decision, it’s important to respect that choice as something responsible for the future. After all, she is in good company—one in every three women gets an abortion, and sixty percent of those women are already married.

Sometimes we don’t use as much protection as we should. Sometimes we use every type of protection possible—and despite the fact that it is 99% effective in conjunction with another form that is 99.7% effective, we are the .03 percent. Until there is a radical revolution in biology, and men can also get pregnant, we will always be at a disadvantage—as we fight for workplace and economic equality, leadership positions, and careers and contributions to the world around us that go far beyond the domestic sphere, it’s important that choice is available, affordable and accessible.

It’s a difficult choice to make—no one is in danger of trivializing it. But the social stigma and forced tragedy of it seem to only make it worse.

So, I would like to say a few words to all of the Republican (and Democrat) legislators trying to make abortion inaccessible—first through manipulating insurance plans away from covering it, then through enforcing mandatory counseling, mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds designed to guilt women about their choice and then through absurd regulations designed to shut down abortion clinics, making abortion nominally legal but inaccessible.

Those words? Fuck. You. All.

You are all men. You have no idea what it is like to be a woman, and what it is like to be pregnant, not be sure if you are pregnant or even any grasp of how much taking a pregnancy to term affects every aspect of daily life—and then the future thereafter. You can have children, see them when you come home, and continue your career (as an ideological terrible politician) being as absent as you choose to, or not to be.

Your desire to control women’s bodies is sickening. The painstaking effort you are taking on legislation to choke our right to choose from the outside, all the while cutting funding from institutions that actually matter would be absurd—if it weren’t so immediately dangerous to our lives and futures.

As men who wish to be called men, you have no role in the abortion debate other than to unquestioningly support women in whatever choice they might choose to make. Politicians, we are not your daughters, and even if we were you have no right to compromise our futures with one stroke of your patriarchal pen. Boyfriends, lovers, flings, sex buddies and men we knew for a night, this is not your choice. It is ours. We will figure it out. Trust us.

Chastened?

Here’s the tl;dr for this post: Dawn Eden made herself a nuisance to this blog and others about five or six years ago. Just Google her name along with that of pretty much any feminist blogger or blog and you’ll see what I mean. Now she’s reared her head again, mentioning me and this blog (and my reviews of her first book) in an interview about her new book. I don’t care all that much about what she said about me, personally, but the interview and book bring up a lot of issues that Dawn and I (as well as other feminist bloggers) have gone at each other over before and which I feel merit a response. Dawn has long been an engaging if fundamentally dishonest writer, particularly on the subject of feminism and women’s sexuality, and in the interview and her book, she accuses feminists of, essentially, causing child sexual abuse by supporting sexual freedom for adult women. In addition, there’s a good bit of inside-baseball stuff about the Catholic church and the clerical sex abuse scandal, and how Dawn addresses – or rather, fails to address – that scandal in the context of a book, written from a specifically Catholic perspective, about using Catholic writings and teaching as a means of healing from childhood sexual abuse.

Prosecuting “Bad” Mothers

A must-read in this week’s New York Times Sunday Magazine about over-zealous Alabama prosecutors bringing charges against drug-addicted mothers. It’s a troubling and complex issue. Obviously no one thinks that using drugs during pregnancy is a good idea. Obviously it is a tragedy when a baby is stillborn, or born with drugs in its system. But many of these cases involve stillbirths which cannot be clearly tied to drug use — all the prosecutors know is that the pregnant woman used drugs (even one time) and the baby was stillborn, and so they assume (and argue, with little to no evidence) causation. And because most folks don’t understand just how complicated pregnancy actually is — and after the 80s “crack baby” hysteria, don’t understand that drug use during pregnancy actually doesn’t usually cause long-term problems in the child — people hear “drug-using mom” and “stillborn baby” and it’s easy to conclude that A led to B, even though that’s not actually how it works.